Customers are increasingly tuning to computer networks, and the Internet in particular, to locate and purchase goods and services. So-called ‘online’ shopping involves the location and purchase of goods and/or services by way of a network. Increasingly, mobile phones and other wireless devices are being employed to this end.
One problem with conventional online shopping techniques is that they typically involve payment by way of credit or debit cards. To consummate such transactions, sensitive customer financial data is communicated between the customer and the vendor and may be stored electronically by the vendor. This subjects the financial information to theft vulnerabilities. For example, the information may be intercepted by unscrupulous third parties when it is communicated from a computer system of the customer to a computer system of the vendor. Thieves may also penetrate the security of the vendor's computer system where the financial information is stored to obtain the financial information of large numbers of customers. In networked computer environments where customers purchase from many vendors, the security risk quickly multiplies as a customer's financial information is communicated and stored among an ever greater number of computer systems.
One prior art approach has attempted to address these shortcomings by centralizing the billing function (whereby the customer is charged and remits payment for goods and/or services purchased) at the customer's Internet Access Provider (ISP). This approach is taught by U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,221 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,188,994 B1, both to Egendorf. A drawback of this approach is that it does not reflect the natural manner in which most customers are accustomed to shopping, and it places the ISP in the awkward role of charging for and disbursing funds for a wide variety of goods and/or services that have nothing to do with the ISP's core function of providing Internet access.